It makes me breathless just thinking about it: a whole area of town devoted to beads (tirtir in Arabic, in case you ever need to know), buttons, bindings, edgings and sequins, plus other haberdashery bits and bobs. The area is as jam packed full of [...]

I was wandering to the tentmaker’s area in Old Cairo and passed a small shop with piles and piles of cotton sitting outside. I have been wanting to buy some for years, but for some reason have been too shy! I stopped this time and [...]